I think the real implication of MGSV is that ocelot brainwashed a comatosed big boss into thinking he's a faceless nobody and not the real big boss, to groom him into being the perfect blank slate to mold into the successor of the boss's (his mother's) will. By making it seem like the "real" big boss fucked off somewhere with a new identity, "venom snake" is left with no identity aside from being "big boss". He becomes a true symbol that the world can unite under: the best soldier in the world, a faceless nobody. It perpetuates the war economy by justifying soldiers: anyone can become big boss.The real ruse is that ocelot successfully brainwashed both *you* , and big boss, into thinking you weren't the "real" big boss. MGSV is big boss's internal battle as he tries to remember that he is the real one, and not a fake, and that there was actually nobody behind the drapery. He then convinced you you were on the other side of it. As told the first time around, Snake escaped from the hospital alone, but that also doesn't mean the truth tapes aren't real. The truth tapes exist, but must be read as the final layer to the lies. "Ishmael" is ocelot's brainwashing obfuscating how "snake" escaped from the hospital alone. Ahab and ishmael are the same person, the game is screaming this in your face through holding a mirror up to you three times and saying, in order1.) You are big boss (prologue)2.) You aren't big boss (truth)3.) You and your reflection (metaphorically representing the player and the protagonist) are big boss together (ending)Why would you trust a mission called "truth," in a game taking place in 1984? And why does it switch from night, to day when ocelot rescues "ishmael," to night again when he rescues "ahab?"Why does ishmael have the medic's face?The doublethink exists to hint towards this hidden brainwashing. Ocelot did this because snake rejected the boss's will in peace walker. He likely is the traitor who plotted the motherbase attack.
https://www.reddit.com/r/metalgearsolid/comments/879bjd/my_loose_theory_on_what_really_happened_in_v/This thread explains it better than I can in a 4chan word count. It is incredibly obvious once you realize this theme though. Why do you think OKB zero has diamond dogs logos? The whole thing is ocelot's playground. He controls all sides, and he's creating the true successor to the boss in this experiment.
>>736209261Too long; didn't read. Please keep your posts shorter. I did you and everyone else a favor and asked ChatGPT to summarize your post into 2 sentences. Here it is:The post argues that Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain secretly depicts Ocelot brainwashing both Big Boss and the player into believing the protagonist is a false “Venom Snake,” when in fact he is the real Big Boss being conditioned into a symbolic, identity-less figure to sustain the war economy.It further claims the game’s narrative layers, contradictions, and “truth” sequences are deliberate doublethink meant to obscure this reality, implying the entire story is Big Boss’s internal struggle against that manipulation.
>>736209375Wait but he kinda cooked fr fr
>>736209261Doublethink exists only to justify Liquid Ocelot in MGS4, that's all there is to it. Other plot points introduced in the game also serves to retrospectively give credence to MGS4 like the AI being a crapshoot molding the war economy based off of MSF and Zero turning into a vegetable.
>>736209261>Ocelot did this because snake rejected the boss's will in peace walker. He likely is the traitor who plotted the motherbase attack.Ocelot dedicated the last 14 years of his life to save Big Boss and defeat the man who ruined his life after leaving the Patriots.
>>736209747Consider the possibility that, whether or not "venom snake" is real, he becomes the "real legend" of big boss in achieving nuclear disarmament.And ocelot groomed him to there every step of the way handing him casette tapes telling him what to think.I think MGSV is implying ocelot is actually behind the legend of big boss, and is the true mastermind of the series. It actually transforms mgs4 in a really complex and thought provoking way.
>>736209981Basically, ocelot created the legend of Big boss to Kickstart the war economy in the first place. He is setting up the events of mgs4 as early as the 80s in contributing to big boss's myth, and it's because he has a twisted interpretation of his mother's will. Big boss outright rejected the boss's will, remember. He wasn't trying to implement any form of her vision before mgsv.
>>736209981not really any different from the "we are all big bosses in this blessed day" that the game peddles to you by the time the credits rolland Miller was the one who created the war economy in PW so everyone after including The Patriots and Armstrong were copying him
>>736209261yea Venom is a mentally cooked frankenstein and a 100% unreliable narrator. The player gets a strong sense of this while they're playing the game. I think OP might be righthowever the majority of the fandom chose what they were told at face value in the "truth" tape combine that with the weird quote towards the end of the game, Nietzche I think something like "there is no truth, only interpretations" I never see anyone mention that. Basically I think it was supposed to be up in the air whether or not we were Big Boss, (we were regardless), but the fandom chose to see it as black and white and seethedEither interpretation can be true. Kojima could reveal on his deathbed that V was in fact BB all along and everyone would shitstorm, replay the game, and give him bravo once again.>>736209981>>736210081uh. I never understood Ocelot desu. in 4 he is making amends and defeating the Patriots. With a healthy dose of Liquid Anarchy. That is motive enough. I do not see how Ocelot is devoted to the Boss's will. in fact, I dont think Ocelot gives a shit about his mom, he is seemingly unphased on the airplane after BB killed her in '64. Ocelot seems like a daddy's boy and something of a Soviet up until he is too entangled in Patriots to get himself out. Hence the 20 year deep cover subversion and eventual final gambit that was mgs4
>>736210710For extra context, the person who *co-wrote* phantom pain with kojima and who was later directly credited in DS1 and DS2, insists that the game never lies to you. If you replay it after the ending, the intro is still telling you the truth. This is straight from the writers.https://web.archive.org/web/20151123024512/https://webnewtype.com/special/metalgear/en_02/""If you play through V to the end, and then go back and play it again from the beginning, you find that there are no lies in the story or the setting, all the way to the finish. But, there's huge room for interpretation. I think that's what it means to "give the game back to the players." Where in the past we on this side of the screen just listened to the messages told to us by Snake and Big Boss, now each one of us is free to express our own message. Us becoming Big Boss completes the saga. Perhaps that was the ultimate aim of Metal Gear."You both are and are not big boss. Both missions are true. 2+2=5, where is the truth? Hidden within the lies, and both missions are a lie obfuscating the truth as venom looks into the mirror listening to the man who sold the world tape, trying to figure out who he is.
